


Maybe One Day Soon

by AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, dark&twisty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4514184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell/pseuds/AtLeastWeWontBeLonelyInHell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why did you call him?" Emily asks. It's late and she's leaning in the doorframe to the office, watching Clyde's face in the reflection of the window.<br/>He's silent for a long time. A sad smile on his face when he finally turns around to face her.<br/>"Because I want you to get through this," he tells her. His blue eyes meeting hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe One Day Soon

**Maybe One Day Soon**

**.**

**.**

There's only one reason Emily Prentiss doesn't look up when the door to her office swings open without anyone knocking beforehand- it's her birthday and Clyde had promised to take her out for dinner.

"What took you so long?" Emily asks with a smile on her face. Her gaze still fixed at the screen in front of her. The clock at the bottom of the page telling her that it's already past eight.

"I haven't eaten all day, I'm hungry," she announces. Curious what Clyde has planned.

But when she finally turns around to face him, the smile on her face disappears.

It's not Clyde Easter waiting in her office, but a teenage boy. Wearing a casual wool coat over a plain school uniform. Blonde hair cut short, his handsome face a reminder of the man she'd known too well and eyes as blue as his father's had been. Eyes Emily would have recognized anywhere.

_Declan._

"This is for my father," he tells her, a blank expression on his pale face. When she spots the gun in his hand, it's already too late.

There's a sharp and stinging pain when the bullet hits her. Throwing her backwards in her chair, knocking the air right out of her lungs. Gasping, she looks down at her chest. Feels the blood pouring, warm and wet and sticky, turning her white blouse crimson.

She hears footsteps, shouting from outside her door and she knows it will be only seconds before agents storm her office.

But the boy knows too.

Unable to move, Emily watches as he lifts the gun again.

She wants to scream, wants to tell him to stop. But it happens so fast, there's nothing else to do but stare back at the kid she once played hide and seek with.

The last thing she sees, is the haunted look in Declan's eyes as he pulls the trigger one last time. The barrel pressed against his temple.

.

When she wakes up in the hospital, they tell her it's a miracle she's alive.

Emily says nothing.

She stares at the ceiling instead, thinking that it's a curse.

_Emily Prentiss, doomed to survive._

"Tom is dead, isn't he?" Emily asks later, watches Clyde leaning back against the window of the small room.

He meets her gaze, nods.

"Who taught him how to shoot like that?" Emily whispers, her body throbbing painfully. She's afraid to hear the answer, yet she needs to know. Clyde stays silent.

She watches him close his eyes. His arms crossed in front of his chest. And there's no need to ask what he's thinking. It's written all over his face.

Emily goes back to staring at the ceiling.

.

She stands in the doorframe to her office, looking at the newly painted walls. There's no trace of blood. No reminder of what happened.

They even changed the floorboards.

Emily feels her fingers dig into her skin, leaving marks in the flesh. And she feels the need to dig deeper, until she draws blood. Until she can stop the pain inside her, from tearing her to pieces.

Clyde shows up out of nowhere. His hands on her shoulders, gentle and firm. His voice close against her ear while he tells her that it's too soon. That she shouldn't be there.

Emily stays quiet and allows him to lead her away, back down the hallway.

.

She's standing on the bridge, staring down at the black water.

It's dark and cold. The brisk wind tears at her clothes, the rain soaks the rich fabric of her coat.

And she wonders if it would hurt, wonders how it would feel to drown down there in the ice cold water. Swallowed up by the sea.

"For fucks sake, Emily! Are you insane?"

She feels someone grab her from behind. An arm around her waist, a hand on her shoulder. Shaking her.

She blinks against the rain streaming down her face. Meets Clyde's eyes in the faint light above her head. He looks scared. Soaked from head to toe and she wonders how long he's been looking for her.

_Why does he keep doing that?_

"Bloody hell, Emily!" he shakes her again. Harsher this time. But she stays quiet. Allows her eyes to drift back down to the water.

"Would you just get in the damn car? It's raining!"

Emily shrugs. "It's always raining," she whispers.

She feels him step closer, feels his eyes on her face. Knows that he's trying to figure out if it's raindrops or tears.

Emily doesn't plan on telling him.

.

It starts with a few pills to sleep through the night, a few to keep the nightmares away.

Soon she needs more to make this work, but then she needs something else to get out of bed in the morning. Something to get her through the day and something to calm her down whenever she starts to lose it.

Emily knows that Clyde knows, yet he stays out of it.

Of course he does.

It's  _just a few pills._

But deep down Emily knows that he's just as broken as she is.

She doesn't go back to her office.

She can't.

No matter how white the walls look, for Emily they'll always be crimson.

Declan's ghost lingering in the shadows. His haunted eyes taunting her.

In the end it's Clyde who takes matter into his own hands and arranges for a second desk in his office instead.

.

It's the middle of December and the Interpol building may be the only one left in London without Christmas decorations.

Emily has always hated the holidays, but this year, it's worse.

It's not just pills any longer, but white powder on sparkling mirrors too. It's wrong and stupid and it makes her feel like sixteen all over again.

Maybe that's the reason she takes an Interpol jet back to DC without permission.

When she lands it's getting dark. It's freezing and as she steps out of the cab in front of his apartment it starts to snow.

White puffy flakes tumbling down from the dark sky, more and more, while she waits on the steps for him to answer the door. A look up to his floor confirms what she should have known in the first place.

He's not there. And of course not, he's probably working a case. Maybe he's not even in town and she scolds herself for being so thoughtless. She should have called first. Should have kept that spare key after all.

She sits down on the front steps despite the freezing cold. Too high to realize that this may not be a good idea.

Someone calling her name makes her blink. And she wonders why it's so hard to open her eyes.

"Emily! Emily can you hear me?"

At first she has no idea where she is, all she knows is that her whole body hurts.

She feels an arm around her shoulder and than she's pulled up to her feet. She staggers, stumbles, her legs useless. If it weren't for the person holding her, she would have fallen.

"Please say something, Emily!"

She blinks again and this time there's a flash of light from above. A face close to her own. Hazel eyes looking back at her.

_Spencer._

_._

It's not until she's buried under a stack of blankets, a cup of tea in her hands, that she's aware of her surroundings again.

"Emily."

She blinks, turns her head and finds Spencer standing next to her. His hands in his pockets, his hair tousled, falling into his face.

"What did you do?"

His voice sounds calm and gentle, yet Emily can hear the anger hidden underneath. And it takes her a moment to realize what he must see when he looks into her eyes.

"I shouldn't have come," she tells him. Putting her cup down on the coffee table, getting to her feet as fast as possible in her condition.

"Emily," he says and she feels her body flood with warmth. "Tell me what happened."

She shakes her head. "I can't." And she can't, isn't allowed to. Everything that happened is classified.

She stares down at the floorboards, thinking about the last time she'd been here. The last time she'd stood there and he'd been the one on the couch. Completely out of it, drugs running through his veins.

How long has it been? Emily doesn't remember.

But he seems fine now and she's glad he found a way to move on with his life.

His hand on hers makes her jump. He looks startled and Emily makes a step back.

"I have to go," she tells him. Hates herself for sounding so weak and needy. "I'm sorry."

She turns around, makes a step toward the door and then his hand grabs her and swings her around to face him. His hazel eyes burning with rage and worry and something else.

Before she knows what's happening, their lips meet in a hard kiss.

She's not sure who started it, there's no way to tell and it doesn't matter, because his hands are in her hair and her fingers are playing with the buttons of his shirt.

The fairylights on the Christmas tree in the corner of the room blink in a steady rhythm.

.

She wakes up with a headache and it takes her a moment to remember where she is. She sits up slowly, the blanket pressed against her chest while she looks down at Spencer's sleeping form next to her.

It's still dark outside, the Christmas tree the only light in the room and Emily wonders what time it is. She squints her eyes, tries to make out the clock on the wall, but it doesn't matter anyway.

She reaches for her clothes, gets dressed in a hurry. Fighting against the shaking of her hands.

_What the hell was wrong with her?_

She feels like screaming and she has to bite her lip to keep from doing so, while she grabs her coat and her bag on her way out. As fast and as quietly as possible.

Not looking back once.

.

She's already on her way back to London, staring out into the sky, when Clyde calls her.

She ignores the first couple of times, takes his fifth call. Her voice hoarse, her throat sore.

"Have you told him?" he wants to know and Emily doesn't even bother to ask how he knows where she's been.

"No," she answers. Rubbing her temple, trying to fight the headache. "I didn't."

It's silent for a moment and Emily can feel his anger through the phone.

"I don't want to see you at the office. Do me a favor and take a few days off."

Emily's startled and he hangs up on her, before she has the time to say something.

She finds herself fighting back tears, the phone still in her shaking hands.

.

She's lying on her bed, her phone somewhere on the floor, the battery dead. Her head hurts and her chest hurts even more. With every cough she can hear the wet rattling in her lungs getting worse.

Her throat burns, her eyes sting and she feels hot and cold at the same time.

She coughs again and then again, tears filling her eyes due to the pain in her chest. She presses a shaking hand against her mouth, sees stars and white exploding behind her eyes while her whole body shakes. When she pulls her hand back there's blood.

Still coughing, she rests her head against the sheets, allows her eyes to shut and the fever to take over.

There's no point fighting.

If she hadn't been so tired, she would have laughed. She never thought she'd die of pneumonia.

Someone calling her name makes her blink again. She has no idea how much time has passed, all she knows is that her body is on fire. Her eyelids so heavy she's barely able to open them. Everything hurts.

She catches a glimpse of Clyde's face, before she feels his hands under her knees and on her back, while he lifts her up in his arms. He's talking to her, but she can't make sense of it. She allows her head to rest against his shoulder, her fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt and she's just glad he's there. Glad he came back for her, no matter how much he hates her right now.

_._

She wakes up in a hospital bed. Again.

Clyde sitting on a chair next to her, his face worn with sorrow.

She wants to say something, but he just shakes his head. Squeezing her hand tightly.

_._

It's January, London covered under a thick blanket of snow and ice. Emily is watching the city from the floor-length windows of the office. Her hands pressed against the glass to cool her burning skin.

Her head hurts and her hands are sweaty. She's tired and sad and furious at the same time.

The nightmares won't stay away, no matter how many pills she takes. Her doctor's worried, won't prescribe for her anymore and she feels her control slipping day by day.

"You're in withdrawal," Clyde tells her. Watching from behind his desk.

"Go to hell," Emily growls, tearing at the collar of her blouse. Trying to fight the nausea.

There's a something dark lingering in Clyde's eyes, when he tells her:

"I think we're already there, darling."

_._

She sees the guilt written all over his face. And it's getting more and more visible each day.

"It wasn't your fault," she tells him one morning, when she finds him sitting behind his desk. His eyes bloodshot, his clothes rumpled.

He shakes his head.

"You're wrong, darling. It is my fault."

"No, Clyde. We were in this together. All of us."

He stares back at her. His eyes filled with pain.

"No, darling. We never were. I was the leader and that makes me the only one to blame."

Emily keeps quiet, sits down behind her own desk. Wonders if things would be different if they had known how many lives this case would cost. Would they even have worked it in the first place?

Maybe. Maybe not.

_That's crap._

The truth too painful to admit.

.

One morning he's just there. Shows up out of nowhere in the doorframe of the office.

His dirty blonde hair tousled, his hazel eyes filled with warmth. A kind smile on his lips. His book bag slung over his shoulder and his hands casually stuffed in his pockets.

Just like she remembers and so different.

"What are you doing here?" is the only thing she manages to get out, her hands trembling.

Emily watches him smile while he steps closer. Finally settling down on the chair in front of her desk.

"You came for me too."

.

"Why did you call him?" Emily asks. It's late and she's leaning in the doorframe to the office, watching Clyde's face in the reflection of the window.

He's silent for a long time. A sad smile on his face when he finally turns around to face her.

"Because I want you to get through this," he tells her. His blue eyes meeting hers.

"Is that all there is?" Emily whispers, unable to tear her gaze away.

He shrugs. "It's all that matters, darling."

.

"I can't go back," Emily explains. Her eyes fixed on the water.

They're standing next to each other on the bridge, snow glistening on the railing. The sun shining down on them from a cloudless sky, warming their faces.

"I know," Spencer answers and Emily feels his eyes on her. "I'll stay."

Emily blinks. Looks up at him. Surprised.

"But you have to work," she starts. "You can't just stay in London with me."

Spencer shrugs. "I'm sure they'll manage without me for a while. And besides, they can still call."

They keep standing there, next to each other. Listening to the traffic behind and to the water below. And if Emily hadn't known better, she would have said she could already see the first signs of spring.

**.**

**.**

 


End file.
